


drawing a fine line; a neverending love

by sapphicsweets



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Artist!Peter, Bad Writing, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, ned is done with peters shit, peter parker is so whipped, potential secondhand embarrassment, so is mj tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 20:10:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20936039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicsweets/pseuds/sapphicsweets
Summary: i did not proof read this! this is bad! i just miss peter and mj!this is an au??? sorta?? idk just read it





	drawing a fine line; a neverending love

Believe it or not, Peter Parker was very artistic. Sure, his love for photography wasn’t a secret, but his love for art didn’t stop there. He used to be in band so he knew how to truly appreciate the art of music and songwriting, he read a lot about the creation of the Star Wars films and admired how much heart and effort went into making a good film, he even tried his hand at sculpting once because he loved how personal it was. But most of all, he loved to draw.

This was a secret. He never shared his drawings with anyone, not even May or Ned. At first it was because he was embarrassed that they weren’t any good. He was worried that they would secretly judge or mock the visuals he spent so long crafting and perfecting. 

But that insecurity faded after a while. He knew he wasn’t an artistic prodigy or anything, but he learned he wasn’t half bad. He was great at drawing portraits that showed real emotions, despite his slightly cartoon-ish art style. No, he hid his drawings now for a different reason.

See, Peter drew things he found pretty. At first this started with him drawing people he saw as Spider-Man in their happiest moments, super cute dogs he got to pet, or sometimes the sky when it was a particularly nice day. But then he saw Michelle Jones in his biology class.

Peter wasn’t an idiot, he’d seen her before, obviously. They’d been in classes together for years. But he hadn’t really seen her until one day two months ago when Flash made a smartass quip about Peter in front of the whole class and Michelle, without hesitation, turned around and said “Eugene, you’re a dick.” And slowly she began to fill his entire sketchbook. 

On this particular morning, Michelle was wearing what looked to be a vintage cardigan over her t-shirt, Peter figured that she probably bought it from a thrift store, but she looked so cute that Peter had to draw her. 

Ned wasn’t in class that day, meaning there was no one there to distract Peter with Star Wars fanfiction discussion or theories about whatever TV show Ned was watching right then, which somehow resulted in Peter paying even less attention than he normally does. So, you can imagine Peter’s surprise when he heard the teacher call out “Mr. Parker, please work with Michelle on today’s lab seeing as both of your usual partners are absent.”

Peter’s eyes travelled towards Michelle, who was sat three rows in front of him in fear. Michelle was already looking at him with a blank expression, which caused Peter to gulp and look away as he gathered his things. He hurriedly shoved his sketchbook underneath his textbook as he walks over to her table, causing her to raise an eyebrow in response.

“Uh-hey.” Peter said in a shaky voice. 

“Hey, loser,” Michelle responded, moving her chair over to the side slightly to give Peter more room as he slid next to her. Peter looked over at the work she’d already begun as he was daydreaming, and was surprised to see that all of it was correct.  
“Wow,” Peter breathed. “You’re uh, you’re really smart.” 

“What? You thought just because I’m a woman I’m not as smart as you?” 

Peter shook his head rapidly, his eyes widening in pure fear. “No! No that’s not what I meant at all! I just meant, you’ve done so much already and you’ve gotten everything right and this would’ve taken me at least fifteen minutes but it took you like five and, ya know, that’d be impressive from anyone! It’s not just because-”

“Woah, slow down.” Michelle said with a laugh. “I’m just messing with you.”

Peter lets out a sigh of relief. “Oh.”

“Uh… thanks, Parker. You’re really smart too.” Michelle said softly, her eyes glued to the worksheet on the table in front of her and avoiding Peter’s gaze.

“Thanks, Michelle.” Peter responded, voice barely above a whisper, his eyes full of admiration and locked on Michelle’s shy expression. He’d never seen her look as vulnerable as she did right then, complimenting him. It was cute.

Michelle found his gaze then, but her voice remained shy. “My friends call me MJ.” 

Peter beamed in response. 

Peter and Mj ended up finishing their work in half an hour, and spent the rest of the period talking. Peter found himself laughing at nearly everything MJ said, she had this morbid sense of humour that left Peter with tears in his eyes. She was also, as he realised earlier, super smart. Like, really smart. Peter didn’t think of himself as dumb, but he struggled to keep up with what she said sometimes. She was amazing.

And being this close to her, Peter couldn’t help but study her features. The way the brown of her eyes shone when the light hit her just right, the way her curly bangs fall in front of her face, the curve of her lips when she tried to bite back a smile while Peter laughed at her jokes. He knew it was probably creepy to stare at her the way he had been, but she was beautiful. And he couldn’t wait to sketch her again, this time in more detail.

MJ looked to the clock while Peter told her about the time Aunt May had nearly burnt down their apartment while trying to make a walnut loaf, and realised they only had five minutes left until lunch. “Don’t think this means I like you or anything, but the period is nearly over and I’m actually enjoying this story, so I’m going to give you my number and you can text me or call me and tell me the rest later.” 

Peter’s mouth dropped in surprise, but he quickly shuts it and nods. “Uh, yeah, great.” MJ looked at him expectantly with her hand outstretched. “Oh! My, uh, my phone is in my locker. I don’t want it to distract me during class.”

MJ rolled her eyes. “God, you’re a nerd.” She lifted Peter’s things to grab his sketchbook from underneath and place it in front of her.

“What are you- uh, what are you, what are you doing? What are you doing with that?” 

“I’m writing my phone number in it, weirdo. Why are you acting so weird?” 

“No reason! Just, uh, just write it in the back. Cause it’s my… diary. Yeah.” Peter affirmed his words with an overtop head nod. 

MJ squinted her eyes at him in suspicion but turned to the back anyway, opening it to a completely blank page. She could see Peter relax in relief next to her but decided not to comment on it as she scrawled her number down in the corner of the page. 

The bell signalling the beginning of lunch rang out as MJ passed the book back to Peter. She gave him an awkward nod before gathering her own things and standing up. 

Peter followed her lead, but just as he stood up he felt a shove against his side and he went tumbling down, knocking MJ over too in the process. “Watch it Penis Parker!” He hears Flash’s retreating voice yell in glee. Of course. 

“I’m so sorry.” Peter apologised, quickly grabbing his books before offering MJ a hand. She ignored it and stands up herself. “You don’t have to apologise for Flash, Parker.” She said, dusting her hands off on her jeans and gripping her books tighter to herself.

“Right. Sorry.” Peter said sheepishly, slowly walking backwards towards the door of the classroom. “I’ll uh, I’ll text you later.” 

MJ watched him retreat, biting back a laugh at how awkward he was. Right as she was about to make her own way out, she noticed Peter’s sketchbook on the floor. He must not have noticed he forgot to grab it in his attempt to help MJ re-gather her things. MJ grabs it from the floor, assuming Peter would have rather her find it than someone else. Like Flash, for instance. She figured she’ll see him again before the end of the day and give it back to him, no big deal. 

Peter noticed it was gone while at lunch with Ned. “And then she laughed at my joke! Well, not really laughed, it was more of a little snort and an eye roll, which was really adorable actually, but still! That’s the closest thing to an MJ laugh I’ve ever seen!” Peter rambled.  
Ned looked up from his lunch to give Peter a quizzical lunch. “MJ?”

“Yeah. Her friends call her MJ.” Peter responded, his expression smug.

“Right.”

“And she gave me the cutest look when I told her about that time I tried doing a backflip over the school fence and had to get stitches. Actually, speaking of…” Peter trailed off quietly, reaching into his backpack to pull out his sketchbook and write a reminder to draw that later. 

“Yeah, that was pretty stupid of you.”

“Oh my god.”

“I mean, it’s a tall fence. I don’t know why you ever thought you’d make that, even with the spider powers.”

“Oh my god!” Peter ran a hand through his hair and tugged, taking a deep breath through his panic. His sketchbook was in there. It had to be in there.

Except that it definitely wasn’t.

“Peter? You okay dude?” Ned asked, noticing how stressed Peter looked. 

“Ned, if I tell you something you have to promise never to tell anyone else okay?” Peter rambled in a hushed voice, leaning over the table so only Ned could hear what he was saying.

“Why do I feel like you’re about to tell me you’re Spider-Man again?” 

Peter looked around quickly to see if anyone was watching them before retraining his eyes on Ned. 

“So I have this sketchbook that I draw in sometimes when I’m stressed and I kind of draw MJ all the time ‘cause I think she’s really pretty and there’s like at least twenty sketches of her in that book and I usually keep it close to me all the time because I’m not an idiot but I don’t have it with me now and I definitely had it in science class because MJ wrote her number in it and now I don’t have it which means MJ might still have it and she might look through it and see all my drawings of her and think I’m some crazy stalker person and never talk to me again.” He said in what was perhaps the longest breath of his life. 

“Wait, MJ gave you her number?”

“Ned!”  
“Right, right. Okay, first, I have to say that I am definitely offended you’ve never shared this secret artistic side of you with me before.” Peter rolls his eyes. “Second, look, it doesn’t sound great, but she might not have it! You could’ve just...dropped it or something.”

Peter looks down, trying to remember if he left the classroom with the sketchbook. “Wait! Flash did push me over right as I was leaving! I could’ve dropped it then!” 

“See? It’s probably still in the classroom then!” Ned smiled and Peter’s entire body slumped forward in relief. 

“It’s probably still in the classroom.” Peter spoke it to himself like a mantra, the more he said it the more he felt his heart rate returning to a normal speed. 

That was when Peter heard MJ’s voice across the cafeteria. She was sitting with Betty today to discuss prom decorations (Betty had convinced MJ to join the committee by telling her she could only make sure there was no misogynistic or heteronormative bullshit at the prom if she worked from the inside), rather than at the end of his and Ned’s table like usual. 

Peter’s head perked up and his gaze immediately travelled to her, she looked bored out of her mind, her chin in her palm and her eyes glazed over, yet she was still responding to what Betty and her friends were saying. He couldn’t help that his gaze lingered on her, she let out a yawn when Betty started mentioning balloons and Peter’s heart swelled. As she brought down the hand she was resting on to lay across her pile of books, Peter noticed a familiar little black book atop the pile. 

“Shit.” Peter cursed.

“What now?” Ned asked in an exasperated tone. 

“She has the sketchbook.”

“What?”

“She has the sketchbook Ned!” Peter nudged his friend and pointed towards MJ. 

Ned led out a deep sigh, clearly sick of his friend’s emotional turmoil but being too kind to say so. “Look, Michelle has a tough exterior or whatever but we all know deep down she’s a genuinely good person. I doubt she would’ve looked through it, and I’m sure if she had she would at least be glancing over here and giving you weird looks or something. Just go over and ask for it back.” Ned placed a supportive hand on Peter’s shoulder.

Peter nodded once, twice, and then stood. Right as the bell rang. He let out a load groan and sank back down on his seat, laying his head against the surface before swinging his backpack over his shoulder and standing again.

Ned looked over at MJ and saw her already exiting the cafeteria and making her way to her final period. “Dude, just catch her after class. She won’t look. It’ll be fine.” 

“Yeah, yeah I hope.” Pete mumbled, wringing his hands together anxiously as he makes his way to his own final class. 

Peter practically sprinted out of class the second the bell began ringing. He rushed to his locker, shoved his books from the day in with no care, grabbed his math textbook that he needed for homework and pushed it inside his backpack, not even bothering to zip it back up as he power walked to the front of the school to stand and wait for MJ. 

He paced while he waited, trying to relieve some of the anxiety from his body. He didn’t want to think about what was going through her mind if she had seen what was in that book. Would she hate him? Would she think he was weird? Would she never want to talk to him again? Oh god, what if she never wanted to talk to him again? He only just really gained her as a friend, he wasn’t ready to say goodbye to that potential. He ran both hands through his hair and shook his head, trying to rid the thoughts that were invading his mind. 

“You alright there loser?” Peter’s head whipped up at record speed and was met with the sight of MJ. MJ!

“MJ!” Peter yelled, causing a confused smile to bloom across her features.

“Yeah, that’s me. What’s up with you?”

“You have my notebook!” Peter yelled. He cleared his throat. “You uh, you have my notebook. You know, the one you uh, you wrote your number in.”

MJ nodded slowly, her eyes scrutinising Peter and his odd behaviour. “That I do.” She made no move to give it back. 

Peter screwed his eyes shut. “Please tell me you didn’t look in it.” 

“I didn’t, but now I want to. What are you hiding, Peter?” She asked, opening the bag that was slung over her shoulder and retrieving the object in question. She still made no move to give it back.

“Nothing! Nothing. It’s my, uh, it’s my diary. I told you.”  
MJ scoffed. “Yeah, if it was actually your diary you absolutely would not have told me it’s your diary. I’m not giving it back till you tell me what’s in it, and I’ll know if you lie again, so time to fess up Parker.”

Peter’s eyes widened in panic. “Please just give it back.”

“Nope.”

“Please.”

“Not happening.

“MJ!”

“Not until you tell me.”

“MJ I’m begging you.”

“Nope!”

“ITSMYSKETCHBOOKANDITHINKYOUREREALLYPRETTYSOIDRAWYOUALOT”

“...what?”

Peter took a deep breath, and trained his eyes on his hands as he fiddles with his fingers. “It’s my sketchbook...I just... I draw you sometimes, okay? And I know that’s super weird and you probably want nothing to do with me ever again and I totally get that-”

“Peter,” MJ’s soft tone cut him off, and he finally found the courage to look up at her, only she was looking away now. 

“I- uh, I didn’t know you drew.” She said, her eyes glued to the book in her hands.

“It’s not something I do seriously, it’s just when I’m bored I guess.” 

“Can I look?” She asked, her tone quiet and cautious, waiting for him to say no. Except he nodded his head instead.

MJ opened the notebook and was met with a gorgeous sketch of the New York skyline.She raised her eyebrows, impressed. She flipped through the first few pages quickly, admiring the various portraits of random people running about their lives, and smiling at the ones of dogs. And then her hands stilled when she landed on the first drawing of her. It was...beautiful. Even she had to admit that. Peter’s art style was cutesy but had a real element of realism too. The artist in her admired it, but the rest of her was filled with butterflies. He’d drawn her so… pretty. Is this how he saw her? She prayed he couldn’t see the way her skin flushed. 

“Wow,” she breathed, not noticing the way Peter was watching her closely. 

Her fingers moved to flip through the pages again, finding almost all of them from then on were portraits of her. This wasn’t a one time thing, she realised. And it wasn’t even just on days where she thought she looked nice. There were a few in there from days she wore pyjamas to class and hadn’t even brushed her hair. 

“Do you think I’m weird now?” The tone of Peter’s voice broke her heart as she tore her sigh from the pages. This boy had created such beautiful art for her, of her, and he was scared she was going to stop talking to him? He was going to be the death of her, she knew it. 

“I already thought you were a weirdo. Now you’re just a weirdo who I like even more than I did before.”

“What?” Peter asked, tilting his head to the side in utter confusion. MJ noticed that he looked like a puppy dog. Lord save her. 

“Here.” MJ handed Peter’s sketchbook to him, and then took a tentative step towards him as she rifled through her bag. “I should probably show you something.” She pulled a beautiful, small leather bound notebook from her bag. “This is my sketchbook.” 

Peter still wasn’t following. She rolled her eyes and tugged his arm so he would look through the book as she opened it. “There isn’t as many, but…” She flicked through about half the sketchbook before landing on a single page and passed the book to Peter. 

“I drew that last year.” She explained, as Peter stared at a sketch. Of himself. MJ drew him. Holy shit, MJ drew him! And it was… really good. It was a side profile of him, but she got every detail right. And her shading was beautiful. He realised then that she must really notice him.

“I uh, I d  
rew that the day I started liking you. I haven’t drawn you since because I didn’t want to risk you noticing that I was staring at you for a drawing but… I guess we both express our feelings in the same way.” MJ said, her eyes flickering from Peter to the ground. She was nervous. She was nervous because of him. 

“I...huh?” 

“Oh my god, you dumbass.” MJ shook her head with a fond smile. “I like you, Peter. I’ve liked you for a while, and I mean, guessing by the amount of drawings you have of me I’m gonna guess that you like me too.” 

Peter’s entire face lit up and he smiled a smile so bright MJ was sure it could cure cancer. “I do! I do like you. I really like you.” 

MJ smiled shyly in response, unable to tear her eyes from Peter’s chocolate ones. 

“Cool. That’s good.” She said, still smiling. Peter nodded enthusiastically, also still nodding. 

MJ cleared her throat and finally looked away, occupying her hands with adjusting the strap of her bag. “Well, I’m uh, I’m gonna go. But...text me. Maybe you can draw me some time when I actually know about it.” She said, retreating slowly.

“Yeah! Yeah, absolutely. I’ll text you.”

“Okay, cool. Bye.” She gave him an awkward wave before turning her back and walking away quickly.

“Bye.” Peter whispered to her as she disappeared in the crowd of students. He flipped open his sketchbook to the last page and traced his fingers over her number. 

Man, if he’d known it would work out this well, he would’ve told people he was artistic ages go. He thinks the story he ended up with was pretty perfect anyway though.

**Author's Note:**

> hope u enjoyed. sorry it was bad. follow me on twitter if u wanna @wiliholdontoyou


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